Printer Friendly Version - Steve Rowe: The Cutting Edge

Steve Rowe, a Clinton native and Deep River resident, spends his weekends at the farmer’s market in Guilford, where he is a vendor of a knife sharpener and hand-carved utensils. Photo by Rita Christopher/Zip06

Steve Rowe’s varied career includes stints as the manager of a camera shop, a wedding photographer, a deliveryman for a linen company, a personal trainer, and an Essex Steam Train employee. Now you can find him on weekends at the farmers’ market at The Dudley Farm in Guilford. He is not only the market manager, but he is also a vendor of hand-carved utensils and a knife sharpener.

Steve, who lives in Deep River and grew up in Clinton, got into knife sharpening by way of a traditional Finnish wooden cup with a handle called a kuksa. Steve saw one of the cups and liked the way it looked so much he decided to make one himself.

“Wow, a wooden cup, that would be impossible to buy. I got knives, let me see if I can make one,” he recalls, adding, “That first one was not pretty. But I worked on them, got the right tools.”

Soon he was carving cups for sale, and then added a variety of utensils including spoons, knives, bowls, even shoehorns.

It takes Steve from two to three hours to carve most of the smaller objects he makes. Knife sharpening was crucial to all the work he did.

“I can’t work with a dull knife,” he says. So he started sharpening his own.

Good knife sharpening, according to Steve, is more than running a blade across a whetstone.

“Lots of knives,” he explains, “have a curve. They are not flat and you don’t want to sharpen them flat. That is really a sharpening error. They won’t cut correctly”

That can make the blade sharp, but it can’t make it work right. People spend a lot of money on new knives, even hundreds of dollars. You don’t want to do that fast,” he says.

Steve does his sharpening at the farmer’s market on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at a cost of $1.25 per inch of blade.

The Dudley Farm, in addition to the weekend market, also includes a farm museum, a small working farm, and hiking trails that connect with Guilford Land Trust Trails.

Steve, who has also done carving demonstrations at Mystic Seaport, was first contacted to do demonstrations and teaching at The Dudley Farmers’ Market in 2019. He started selling his hand-carved items as a vendor that year. In 2020, he became the manager of the market. This year he added knife sharpening.

“I’ve managed things in the past. People are people wherever you are,” he says.

“With a struggling vendor, I ask can you bake? They might not want to buy your hand-knit hat but they will buy the cinnamon buns,” he says.

This year in December, there will be holiday markets on Saturdays and Sundays, Dec. 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, and 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The farmers market then closes until February when it opens again on the first and third weekends of the month.

Steve, who says his time in the Air Force is the source of his fitness training skills, is also a personal trainer. He emphasizes balance in fitness work.

“It’s important for young athletes. It’s a cornerstone for everybody at any age. You want to get down on the floor and play with grandkids and now how do you get up? That is a life skill,” he says. “Balance is training for longevity.”

“I should have a company called Rent-A-Husband, painting, changing lights, framing walls,” he says.

Steve was born in New Jersey and grew up in Clinton, graduating from Morgan High School in 1978. After high school, he served in the Air Force from 1979 to 83, ending his enlistment as a Staff Sergeant. His career, he admits, is varied.

“I’ve played both sides. I’ve been in corporate America. I admit my lifestyle is very alternative but I have no plans to change,” he says.

Someday, he plans to end up in Maine. He has lived there before. “Everyone is worried that I’m going to Maine,” he says.